Middle eastern cuisine is one of my favorites. Yes, there is a lot of meat. But, there are also lots of vegetarian dishes. Great in taste and nutritious. Therefore, when we go to restaurants here in Morocco, we often choose Syrian restaurants. The kids love shawarma and I love falafel. So, everybody is happy! For me, falafel is a perfect meat substitute. Hence, I decided to show you how to turn falafel into a patty and how to make with it a super yummy falafel burger from scratch.
The buns contain a good amount of whole wheat flour, the falafel patty with its herbs and spices is aromatic, crispy outside and at the same time fluffy inside. Combined with some pickled cucumbers, fresh tomatoes, red cabbage, and light yogurt sauce falafel burger is the perfect veggie burger. It’s fresh and much healthier than the industrial stuff. You know all the ingredients in your falafel burger. Although, it’s not a quick meal, it’s worth it! If you are busy, you can help yourself by baking the buns on a rainy Sunday in advance. Simply store the fresh cooled down buns in the freezer! Are you ready for falafel burger? Let’s start!
Ingredients:
Buns:
for the dough
- 300g whole wheat flour
- 300g all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon dry yeast
- 2 teaspoons honey
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 100g plain yogurt
- 200ml lukewarm water
- 1 egg
for the topping
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon milk
- some sesame seeds and nigella seeds
falafel patty:
- about 3 cups soaked chickpeas (soaked for at least 8 hours), uncooked
- 1 onion
- 6 garlic cloves
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablepoons coriander powder
- 2 teaspoons cumin powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda (in Morocco: bicarbonate de soude, available in pharmacies)
- 1 hand fresh parsley
- 1 hand fresh coriander
- about 2 tablespoons bread crumbs
sauce:
- 200g plain yogurt
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 1 tsp tomato paste
- ½ tsp cumin powder
- ½ tsp paprika powder
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1 tsp honey or sugar
- ¼ tsp garlic powder, or ½-1 fried garlic clove, mashed
vegetables:
- 2 tomatoes, thinly sliced
- Pickled cucumbers – amount depending on size and taste
- 200g red cabbage
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 2 tsp vinegar
- 1 tsp olive oil
Directions:
1. At first, activate the yeast fort he dough by mixing it with 1 teaspoon of honey and a little bit of the lukewarm water. Then, let it rest for a few minutes until foamy on top.
2. Next, put the remaining ingredients for the dough into a bowl and add the activated yeast. Afterwards, knead it well for about 10 minutes. Finally, cover the dough and let it rest for about 1,5 hours or until double in size.
3. Subsequently, divide the dough into 9 equal parts. Then, shape the pieces into balls, press the balls with your palm until flat, and put them on a baking trail laid out with baking paper. Let them rest for another hour.
4. Meanwhile, prepare the falafel paste. Therefore, put all the ingredients except the bread crumbs into a bowl, the onion should be roughly chopped. Now, blend the ingredients with a hand blender. Although the mixture seems to be very dry, don’t add water! There is enough liquid in the herbs and the onions! In the beginning, you have to blend with pressure. When most of the ingredients have turned into a paste, let the blender slide into the mixture and continue blending until all chunks have disappeared. At last, add the bread crumbs and mix it with your hand. Let it rest for at least 20 minutes.
5. Afterwards, prepare the vegetables by cutting pickled cucumbers and tomatoes into slices. Cut the red cabbage into fine stripes and put the stripes into a bowl. Then, add salt, vinegar, sugar, and olive oil and knead the cabbage thoroughly, it should crack a little. This procedure will give the cabbage a pickled character.
6. For the sauce add all the ingredients into a bowl and give it a nice stir.
7. Now, preheat the oven. In the meantime, mix the egg for the topping of the buns with some milk and sprinkle the buns carefully with it. Finally, spread some sesame seeds and nigella seeds on the buns and bake them at 200°C – 400°F for about 20 minutes until golden.
8. At the same time, heat a generous amount of oil in a pan. Then, shape the falafel into patties. The size should be similar to the diameter of the buns. Fry them in the hot oil from both sides. Don’t overheat the oil, otherwise, your patties will quickly burn outside and remain raw inside!
Note: you can also bake your patties in the oven, if you want to use less oil! Put them on a baking trail layered with baking paper. Spread the top with olive oil, let it bake until golden. Turn the patties and spread them with oil again. Bake until golden.
9.At last, finish the burger by cutting a bun into half. Spread some of the sauce on each half, if you like you can roast the halves of the bun in advance. Put tomato slices on the bottom part of the bun, add a patty, put cucumbers and red cabbage on it. Finally, close the burger with the remaining half of the bun.
Enjoy your burger classically with some homemade french fries! If you like healthier fast food, try also my recipe for “Anti-Tacos”!
